Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? Teaching Great Poetry to Children

In 'Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?' the celebrated poet Kenneth Koch conveys the imaginative splendor of great poetry--by Blake, Donne, Stevens, Lorca, and others--and then shows how it may be taught so as to help children write poetry of their own.

Kenneth Koch has published many volumes of poetry, including New Addresses, Straits and One Train. He was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1995, in 1996 he received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress, and he received the first Phi Beta Kappa Poetry award in November of 2001.

His short plays, many of them produced off- and off-off-Broadway, are collected in The Gold Standard: A Book of Plays. He has also written several books about poetry, including Wishes, Lies, and Dreams; Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?; and, most recently, Making Your Own Days: The Pleasures of Reading and Writing Poetry. He taught undergraduates at Columbia University for many years. He passed away in 2002.

Introduction: Teaching Great Poetry to Children
Introduction  #2 (1990)
 
*TEN LESSONS*
 
Chapter One.
WILLIAM BLAKE The Tyger
 
Chapter Two.
ROBERT HERRICK The Argument of His Book
 
Chapter Three.
JOHN DONNE A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
 
Chapter Four.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Songs
 
Chapter Five.
WALT WHITMAN from Song of Myself sections 1 and 2
 
Chapter Six.
WALLACE STEVENS Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
 
Chapter Seven.
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS This Is Just to Say; The Locust Tree in Flower; Between Walls
 
Chapter Eight.
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA Romance Sonambulo; Arbole, Arbole
 
Chapter Nine.
JOHN ASHBERY Into the Dusk-Charged Air
 
Chapter Ten.
ARTHUR RIMBAUD Voyelles
 
*ANTHOLOGY*
Introduction to the Anthology
  
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Cuckoo Song
The Irish Dancer

DANTE ALIGHIERI
Sonetto / Sonnet
 
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
The Demon Lover
Lord Randal
 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Sonnet
 
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
 
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Over Hill, over Dale
Under the Greenwood Tree
Aubade
Orpheus with His Lute
Sonnet
 
ROBERT HERRICK
Delight in Disorder
How Violets Came Blew
How Roses Came Red
How Marigolds Came Yellow
 
GEORGE HERBERT
Heaven
 
THOMAS CAREW
A Song
 
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Lamb
The Sick Rose
 
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Kubla Khan 
 
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
 
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Ode to the West Wind
 
JOHN KEATS
Ode on a Grecian Urn
 
ROBERT BROWNING
Home Thoughts, from Abroad
 
WALT WHITMAN
from Song of Myself section 15
from Song of Myself section 26
 
EMILY DICKINSON  
I Never Saw a Moor
 
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
God's Grandeur
 
ARTHUR RIMBAUD
Fleurs / Flowers
 
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Who Goes with Fergus?
 
GUILLAUME APOLLI NAIRE
Coeur Couronne et Miroir / Heart Crown and Mirror
 
D. H. LAWRENCE
The White Horse
Trees in the Garden
Humming-Bird
 
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Der Knabe / The Boy
Aus einer Kindheit / From a Childhood
 
WALLACE STEVENS
Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
Bantams in Pine-Woods
 
MARIANNE MOORE
The Wood-Weasel
 
LÉOPOLD SÉDAR SENGHOR
Je veux dire ton nom / I Want to Say Your Name
 
ELIZABETH BISHOP
Cirque d'Hiver
 
GABRIEL OKARA
Piano and Drums
 
FRANK O'HARA
Les Étiquettes Jaunes
A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island
 
JOHN ASHBERY
The Painter
 
Four Chinese Poems
 
    CH'U YUAN
    In Praise of the Orange Tree
 
    AUTHOR UNKNOWN
    Oath of Friendship
 
    PO CHU-I
    Eating Bamboo Shoots
 
    HAN-SHAN
    Cold Mountain Poems
 
Five Japanese Poems
 
    SHIKI
    What a wonderful day!
 
    ISSA
    Wild goose
 
    RYOTA
    No one spoke
 
    BASHO
    The old pond
    With what voice
 
Two African Tribal Poems
 
    The Magnificent Bull
    Song for the Sun That Disappeared behind the Rainclouds
 
Three American Indian Poems
 
    Dawn Song
    Love-Charm Song
    The War God's Horse Song
 
SOME POEMS FROM SWAZILAND
 
Afterword (Mainly for Teachers)
Bibliographical Note
Author and Title Index of Adult Poems
Subject Index of Adult Poems